Shrimp with Tomato and Linguini

Serves 4 as an appetizer
or 2 as a main course.

Prep: 10 min.
Cooking: 25 min.

Quick and easy this can quickly become a favorite for guests. It is one of those easy meals with few ingredients that gives good results. I used spaghetti here in this photo because I ran out of Linguini.
Both work fine.

Assembling the recipe:

Begin by finely chopping the onion, chili, garlic and parsley and setting them aside.

Open the whole canned tomatoes and take each tomato and remove the seeds. While your doing that you can also pull out of the tomatoes any yellow fiberous core you will find. Both the seeds and this stringy fiber helps makes your sauce more acid which you don't want. This is an extra step but I think it is worth it. Keep all the liquid from the cans in a bowl. When all the seeds have been removed chop the tomatoes coarsely and add to the tomato liquid from the cans.

Heat a large frying pan with 3 to 4 msk. (3-4 or tbls.) olive oil and let get hot. When hot toss in the onions and cook until translucent, then add the chopped chili and cook for 1 minute, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds (don't let it burn) then add 3 of the 4 msk, (3 of the 4 tbls.) of chopped parsley and stir in well and cook for one more minute, still taking care not to burn the garlic.

Add the tomatoes and bring back up to a high heat. At this time add salt, a good pinch of sugar and a really good grinding of freshly ground pepper and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Most of the excess water from the tomatoes should have evaporated.

Add the shrimp and cook until they have turned pink, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

When the pasta is done drain and return to the pot.

As soon as the pasta is ready pour it over the sauce, drizzle over 2 msk, (2 tbls.) of the olive oil and toss well.

Place the sauced pasta on a heated serving plate, sprinkle on the remaining chopped parsley and drizzle over the remaining 2 msk, (2tbls.) olive oil.

I really like this dish and it seems simple enough but it is not one where you can throw everything into the frying pan and expect that it will turn out right. My best recommendation is that all the ingredients in it are fresh except for the tomatoes. In my opinion canned tomatoes actually work best for this, buy good quality Italian plum tomatoes.

You can make the sauce and hour or so before without the shrimp and then heat the sauce really hot and throw the shrimp in 4 or 5 minutes before the pasta is ready so that everything comes off the stove at the same time.

Each ingredient is important and nothing, particularly the parsley should be left out. The reason that you cook each ingredient as you put it in the pan is that the heat of the pan releases that particular favor into the oil, preserving all the flavors individually. This technique will keep the sauce fresher tasting.

Basil can easily be substituted for parsley but I do prefer parsley - at times it seems like there is an awful lot of bazil in everything these days.

The shrimp size listed above should give you about 24 shrimp, a little on the small side. Big jumbo shrimp is not what you want for this. Each appitizer portion should have 4-5 shimp and each main should have 6 - 8 shrimp. So you can buy just that many shrimp you will need depending on if your serving 4 people or 2. I leave on the last joint and the tail because I think it looks nice, but you don't have to. A real time saver with this recipe is to buy the shrimp already cleaned from your fish market.

Black pepper - freshly ground black pepper is wonderful and in this recipe, it really does make a difference.

I have to say, what pulls all of this together is the parsley. Don't skimp and don't think you can substitute dried for fresh you will be terribly disappointed. It gives the dish its fresh taste and makes it look absolutely beautiful.